External Call Control Overview
External call control lets an adjunct route server make call routing decisions for Unified Communications Manager by using the Cisco Unified Routing Rules Interface. When you configure external call control, Unified Communications Manager issues a route request that contains the calling party and called party information to the adjunct route server. That server receives the request, applies appropriate business logic, and returns a route response that instructs your system on how to route the call and any additional call treatment to apply.
The adjunct router influences how your system allows, diverts, or denies calls; modifies calling and called party information; plays announcements to callers; resets call history so that adjunct voicemail and IVR servers can properly interpret calling and called party information; and logs reason codes that indicate why calls were diverted or denied.
External call control provides the following functions:
- Best Quality Voice Routing—The adjunct route server monitors network link availability, bandwidth usage, latency, jitter, and MOS scores to ensure that calls are routed through voice gateways that deliver the best voice quality to all call participants.
- Least Cost Routing—The adjunct route server is configured with carrier contract information such as local access and transport area (LATA) and inter-LATA rate plans, trunking costs, and burst utilization costs to ensure that calls are routed over the most cost effective links.
- Ethical Wall—The adjunct route server is configured with corporate policies that determine reachability, for example, whether user 1 is allowed to call user 2.